What Once Was Lost
by lillypilly11
Summary: He was going to take it all away with him when he left. Elena had other ideas. Damon/Elena scene from 'Rose' rewritten.   Yes, another one.


Notes: Another rewrite of that scene from 'Rose'. Sorry.

* * *

**_What Once Was Lost_**

**_..._**

"...It's because I love you that I can't be selfish with you. And why you can't know this. I don't deserve you. But my brother does."

She was so spellbound by the simple sincerity of his words and the deep well of emotion in his eyes - the nearness of him as his lips touched her forehead, his hand as it brushed her face so tenderly - that the full meaning of his next words almost didn't register.

"God I wish you didn't have to forget this."

And then it struck her, what he was about to do, why he had held onto her necklace and not given it back.

"What?" Her head shook in refusal. She almost couldn't believe it but his eyes told the truth about his intentions. "No. _No_, Damon, it's not fair! Don't," she was grabbing at his hand holding her necklace now, trying in vain to pry it from his grasp, "_Don't_. You coward don't you _dare_."

His eyes cast down at her reaction. He couldn't meet her pleading, accusing eyes. "You don't want to know any of this. You don't want me, fine, that's how it should be. But I can't get over it with you... _looking_ at me like this."

She'd given up trying to get the necklace from his iron grip, and now just held onto his hand, so angry she wanted to shake him. "Then what was that about not being selfish? Saying that to me, letting me see you like this, then taking it all back like it never happened at all? How is that not selfish?"

"When it's for your own good."

"That's crap, Damon, and you know it."

"Kiss me."

"What?"

"You want selfish? Kiss me, and I won't compel you."

She stared at him a moment too long and he nodded.

"Okay then," he said, but there was no bitterness behind his words. He was gentle as his thumb brushed her chin, lifting it to fix his eyes more firmly on hers. It was the hardest thing he'd ever done, and yet it was easy. He was doing this for her.

Then she felt it, the instant the cloud started to settle on her mind - recognised it from her first encounter with compulsion earlier that day.

"_No._"

Her body moved before her mind had finished forming the thought. Furious rebellion drove her forward, her lips colliding with his. He wasn't expecting it, couldn't have foreseen _this_, the urgent press of her mouth, clawing hands pulling at his shoulders, dragging herself up tight against him.

It was a kiss to punish him, because she _hated_ him, was so _mad_ at him, for everything he had done, for everything he made her feel, for every second he made her question herself and what she really wanted. For not being the hateful, self-serving egomaniac she desperately needed him to be.

For him the first few seconds were lost in surprise at the onslaught of intimacy, but he had asked and she was offering and he found himself matching her fury with dark passion as he wrapped an arm around her back and tangled a hand in her hair and kissed her back for all he was worth.

Because if she was so determined not to forget then he was going to make damn sure she remembered.

Long moments passed as they fought a heady battle of lips and tongues and teeth, all bite and bruising pressure and the melding of her body to his.

Until she gasped in sudden pain; the necklace, still looped around his fingers, now caught in her hair at the back of her head. They broke apart, panting, as she reached up and helped him ease the tangled chain from the snarl he'd caused.

Once it was free their hands lowered between them, the necklace binding their hands together, but she held onto it tightly as she caught his eye, wordlessly reclaiming it as her own. After a pause he let go, the deal done. She'd made her choice.

And so had he.

"Now we both have to live with it," he said.

His eyes dropped to her lips, kiss-reddened and tingling.

She blinked, and he was gone, night breeze through the open window the only sign of his passage.

She sank down on her bed, hand still clutching her hard-won prize. She unfurled her fingers and looked at it lying in her palm, a few strands of dark hair still caught in the chain, and came to a quiet realisation.

No wonder he had wanted to take her memory with him when he left. Because now she knew; he loved her. And he was letting her go.

And she hated him for it.


End file.
